Nova Relief Fund ノヴァ救済基金

カンパする方は、下記の銀行口座に振り込むことをお願い致します。

中央労働金庫 chuuou roudou kinko
新橋支店 (289) shimbashi shiten (Branch code 289)
ノバ救済基金 noba kyuusai kikin
普通口座２４３２８２９ futsuu kouza (Ordinary account 2432829)

ノヴァ教職員組合の「青空留学」への参加を希望するノヴァの生徒は、お手数ですが、carlet@jca.apc.org　まで、名前、電話番号、メールアドレスなどの連絡先、あいている曜日の時間、町の名前およびお使いになっている電車の線路などを含めたメールを送信して下さいませ。

Please send your donations to:

中央労働金庫 chuuou roudou kinko
新橋支店 (289) shimbashi shiten (Branch code 289)
ノバ救済基金 noba kyuusai kikin
普通口座２４３２８２９ futsuu kouza (Ordinary account 2432829)

For those teachers who would like to participate in the Nova Union for Staff and Teachers “Lessons For Food” program, please send your name, phone number, email, location, train line, and open days of week and times of day to: carlet@jca.apc.org

Louis Carlet’s Statement to the Foreign Correspondents Club Japan on Nov. 1, 2007

Financial Management did not cause the Nova collapse. Overexpansion did not cause the collapse. The cost of Nozomu Sahashi’s presidential palace, er, office did not cause it. Nor did the vicissitudes of the language-learning market. Nor a cash flow glitch. It wasn’t bad luck.

The Nova Union of Staff and Teachers believes the collapse of Japan’s largest employer of foreigners was caused by the abuse of workers and customers — treating the labor of administrative staff and teachers like commodities to be bought and sold (and I do mean “sold:” refer to the ALT business) and treating the savings and fortune of earnings students like low-hanging fruit ripe for the picking.

Since its founding, Nova has kept its legions of foreign teachers on one-year employment contracts, renewed over and over at the pleasure of management. Even teachers who had dedicated their services to Nova for over a decade, like Bob Tench sitting beside me, remained temporary workers — facing the possibility each year of non-renewal at the whim of management.

Permatemp status devastated the morale of thousands of teachers, leading many to quit after a few months to seek more secure employment.

Yet other language schools imitated Nova’s permatemp employment style. They also imitated Nova’s permatemp employment style. They also imitate Nova’s refusal to enroll teachers in health and pension — known as Shakai Hoken.

This created an industry full of foreigners working under working conditions that set them apart from the rest of Japanese society, making integration or assimilation really impossible.